Posted by Greenbang on May 12th, 2008
As if he didn’t already have enough on his plate with the 10p tax rate and John Prescott and Cherie Blair putting in the boot, Gordon Blair may soon have another little problem to deal with.
As the Telegraph reports, a plan to build a shiny new eco-town in Leicestershire, may soon lumber the Labour Party with new charges of cronyism and sleaze.
The local council doesn’t want the new town, which could house around 15,000 people, and even though they’ve turned it down already, it still on the list of the Government’s preferred 15 sites.
Objectors suggest that Labour could view the application kindly because it is proposed by the Co-operative Group which a) owns the land, b) sponsors lots of Labour MPs, and c) provides the Party with its £13.5m overdraft via the Co-operative Bank.
Here’s what the Telegraph reported:
Kevin Feltham, the chairman of Campaign Against the Stoughton Co-op Eco-Town, has said that the Co-operative Group has had previous applications to build on its land turned down.
“How many people realise that the Co-op Group is a major donor to the Labour Party? It really is at this stage that you think of it as sleaze. That’s all that one can think, because it stinks,” said Mr Feltham. It is of great concern that the current East Midlands minister, Phil Hope, is one of the MPs funded by the Co-op Party.”
Posted by jumperhead on April 29th, 2008
Unless scientists come up with a way of connecting irate commuters and one-legged pigeons up to the national grid, then London isn’t going to be the biggest generator of renewable energy. Scotland however might have more of a chance, with all those windy hillocks and stormy seas. However, in an exemplary piece of logic, some Scots power generators would have to pay the grid to take the electricity, whereas a (presumably fictional) London power station would get a handout.
It’s not gone down well with the Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, who told The Herald:
“There is no justification for charging a power station in Longannet £33m when it would pay - not charge - an equivalent power station in London £13m. Similarly, Peterhead would be charged £30m while a power station in Seabank, in the South West of England, would be paid £3.05m. […]
“Such extremes of charging can have no justification and similar examples were put to me from Shetlands and the Western Isles.”
It’s not all bad news though. According to the Herald, Salmond has been chatting with the head of the national grid Steve Holliday, who wants to see the laws that cause the daft charging regime overhauled.
And that’s not all: Holliday apparently wants to see the system of planning applications for renewable projects overhauled and undersea electric cables built connecting Scotland to England and Wales.
Posted by jumperhead on April 28th, 2008
When elderly women outside shopping centres come up to you waving clipboards, what do you do? Dodge them like they’ve got a communicable disease, or settle down to fill in their market research questionnaires on hand creams, fire safety or whatever anodyne subject they’d like to discuss?
If you’re the sort who likes sharing your opinions, Greenbang has an opportunity that might be up your alley.
The European Commission is currently in the process of dreaming up an offshore wind power action plan and it’s put a shout out for anyone with an opinion to come forward.
If you are one of these people:
nvestors, project developers, wind turbine manufacturers, energy companies, government services, environmental NGOs and all other interested stakeholders, including the general public
then the EC wants to hear from you. The Commission is hoping your answers to its wind questionnaire can help it answer “clearer understanding of the specific key challenges for future large-scale development of offshore wind energy in Europe, as well as with ideas on how the EU could support the development of European offshore wind energy resources”.
If you want to take part, go here.
Posted by Petah Marian on April 25th, 2008
Speaking at the Living in a Low Carbon World Conference this week, Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Peter Ainsworth revealed the opposition’s plan for the environment: an altogether non-controversial plan to turn carbon emissions into commodities that can be trade, and changing the tax system so that polluters pay for their eco-crimes.
He went on a self professed “rant” about the current government’s treatment of climate change, arguing that they do not have a logical, consistent and coherent environmental policy (I’m not a linguist but I think that he used three words that pretty much mean the same thing). Despite this repetition, he deliver a few well-placed jabs to the current government:
- Government departments are less carbon efficient than ten years ago,
- They have introduced biofuels without consulting the electorate
- and they’re planning to build a new generation of coal power stations.
Ainsworth also wants to hand the eco-planning baton back to the average Joe, giving communities and local councils more freedom in choosing how they wish to tackle the issue of climate change, particularly focusing on the current regulations around new buildings.
He also said that “it’s not a politician’s role to tell us how to live”, which is odd, given that’s almost entirely what they do - after all, what are laws for? In the case of climate change, I wonder if taking this sort of hands off approach to climate change at a high level is only going to lead to disaster?
After all, isn’t it just that sort of light touch approach from worldwide governments that’s lead to businesses polluting with gay abandon in the first place?
Posted by jumperhead on April 23rd, 2008
The UK has a slew of famous Lewises. The most famous is probably Inspector Morse’s hangdog assistant. The second the questionable Bonfire loving Sussex town. Third maybe that lass off Pop Idol. But somewhere in the list of illustrious Lewises, there’s the Scots town.
A town that almost boosted its Lewis rankings by having a whacking great wind farm on it. Almost - for the wind farm was nixed by Scots MPs this week. The 181 turbine, 650 MW plan was apparently binned due to incompatibility with EU law, and to protect the local endangered birds that live in the Lewis Peatlands Special Protection Area.
Lewis Wind Power, the group that wanted to put up the turbines, had this to say about the knockback:
“Lewis Wind Power is bitterly disappointed by the Scottish Government’s decision to reject our proposal for a wind farm on Lewis. Over the 6 years of this project, we have conducted extensive environmental and economic studies and designed the development around these findings. As a result, we believe we had put forward a detailed case showing the benefits of our proposal and the benefits it would bring to Lewis, the Highlands & Islands region and to Scotland. We also believe that during our discussions with the Government, we demonstrated that this proposal could have been approved without violating European law.
The local authority and all of Scotland’s major business organisations fully recognised the huge benefits that this proposal would have delivered. The economic benefits included the creation of around 400 local jobs, 680 jobs across Scotland, during the construction process, as well as providing much needed investment to the Arnish Yard to make it a global competitor for other projects. The proposed community ownership of up to 15% of the wind farm would also have provided sustained income to the local community to invest in further sustainable economic activity.
The wind farm would have contributed 650MW of renewable energy to help the fight against climate change and paved the way for an interconnector to the mainland to encourage more investment in other renewable technologies. Sadly all of this has been lost because of the Government decision which, we believe, represents a huge missed opportunity.
We will be considering the Government’s response in detail before deciding on our next move.”
Posted by jumperhead on April 15th, 2008
The inventors are unknown, but some combinations are uncontroversial in their brilliance and universally approved. Gin and tonic. Cheese and pineapple, preferably on sticks. Curry and naan. Footballers and page three girls. Some mixes are just classic.
Some mixes - well, not so much.
Today one such mix has just been born: the mix is biofuels and petrol. From today, petrol will be mixed with 2.5 percent biofuels as part of the government Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation. By 2010, it’ll be 10 percent.
The government reckons the carbon savings will add up to 2.5 million tonnes by 2010 and suppliers will have to cough up all the details on the fuels themselves, including where the crops originate and how sustainable they are.
The government would also like you to know that its thinking about the issues of biofuels’ impact on food. Really. Just not yet.
Ruth Kelly is cooking up a review to “ensure that the full economic and environmental impacts of biofuel production are taken into account in the formation of UK policy beyond 2010″. Greenbang hopes she’s not being churlish in suggesting the review might have been better carried out before the policy was formulated in the first place.
Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said:
“Making it easier for motorists to use greener fuel is an important step towards reducing carbon emissions from transport. It should help save millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide in the coming years.
“But we must do all we can to ensure biofuels are produced sustainably. We know people are concerned about the environmental risks associated with expanding biofuel production and we take those concerns very seriously.
“That is why we want to introduce mandatory standards as soon as possible to guarantee that biofuels don’t cause deforestation or food shortages and we are leading international work to do this. In the meantime, we require suppliers to produce sustainability reports, providing an immediate incentive for them to source biofuels responsibly.”
Posted by Greenbang on April 10th, 2008
CHINA WATCH
By Yan Yan, Beijing
The Chinese government is changing tactics, from an indulgent parent to a “green” nanny, looking after every corner of offices and houses they’re urging people to be green. The latest worry? Photocopiers.
China will impose its new standards of power consumption with an energy saving rating on copy machines. The regulations are waiting for authority approval at the moment, and are expected to be announced in June, according to Xinhua News.
Up to 10 percent of the current duplicators, which failed to meet the new standards, would be forced out of the market, said senior engineer Chen Haihong of the China National Institute of Standardization. Calls for capping copiers’ energy consumption have piled up in China, as the machine has been labeled among the biggest power guzzlers among electrical appliances, along with air conditioners and refrigerators. Consumers may worry that they will ultimately have to pay for the fee for energy-saving. But Xinhua also quoted Su Canqun, who works in the marketing department of Konica Minolta, a leading Japanese printing machine manufacturer, saying that:
“The new standards would edge up production costs slightly. Consumers, however, wouldn’t feel the increase as the copier producer had been making headway in cost controls and energy saving in recent years.”
Posted by jumperhead on April 8th, 2008
Greenbang’s getting rather excited about this year’s US presidential election. Normally, choosing between presidential candidates is no different to choosing between different washing powders. They all look the same and do the same thing, its just that one has nicer packaging than the other.
In the electoral spirit, Greenbang has been taking a magical mystery tour through Hillary’s election pledges to see if she has plans other than to ’spread democracy’ to the darkest corners of the globe. Greenbang’s bloody relieved to see she does.
In fact, it would seem Hilary’s got out her carbon footprint calculator, punched in some numbers, and rather than turning it upside and showing everyone she’s spelt ‘BOOBLESS’, she’s come up with a few ideas, If we take her word for it, she will set the US of on a course of action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent of 1990 levels by 2050 and significantly cut oil imports by 2030 by using more renewables.
How will she achieve this? Well, she’s promising to invest $150 billion in research, development and deployment of clean energy over the next decade. This will feed into a whole stack load of nationwide and state specific programmes, ranging from improving home energy efficiency to greening public transport. There’s nothing her green wand won’t zap, so to speak.
She’s been giving it all that about the environment on her recent visits to Oregon and Montana. Here’s what she’s promised for those places:
A new incentive program to help farmers and ranchers in Montana and across the country pay for up to 50 percent of the cost to install on-farm energy technology, such as windmills, solar panels, and biodiesel oilseed presses.
A permanent renewable production tax credit and new consumer tax incentives to support Montana’s burgeoning wind-power sector.
A “Green Building Fund” that will create more than 100,000 new jobs, and provide $5 million annually to fund Montana initiatives.
Immediate funding for 10 large scale carbon capture and storage projects to help pioneer new clean-technologies for coal states like Montana.
A permanent renewable production tax credit and new consumer tax incentives to support Oregon’s cutting edge wind-power sector.
A Green Building Fund to help Oregon continue its first-in-the-nation status on certified green buildings per capita.
A Made Green in America Fund that would provide Oregon with at least $6.5 million per year to invest in clean energy technology manufacturing.
Green transportation investments to help support light rail projects like the MAX in Portland.
Posted by jumperhead on March 26th, 2008
Greenbang is a big fan of the Germans - a nation that has a love of unfeasibly large two pint glasses of beer, is rather partial to a bit of football and knows that their meat should come in large portions with some bread involved in there somewhere.
If Greenbang needed another reason to love the Germans it would be that David Hasselhoff thing. If Greenbang needed yet another reason, it would be that the Reichstag, the German parliament building is converting to 100 percent renewable energy, according to the The Guardian.
Apparently, according to the paper, the Reichstag runs on 40 percent renewable energy at the moment, using biofuels, with the remainder coming from coal and nuclear.
Soon, the building will move to renewable sources using wind, water and solar for the entirety of its energy demands after a parliamentary subcomittee started the hunt for a supplier. The lucky winner will be found in the summer, the Guardian says.
Posted by Greenbang on March 21st, 2008
This just arrived from our partners at the Matter Network. U.S. elections are so much more interesting than British ones…
Governor Bill Richardson — a former Secretary of Energy under Bill Clinton — today endorsed Barack Obama.
It has been rumored that Richardson — who has long supported renewable energy — is on the short list of vice presidential candidates for Obama. Should Richardson get the VP nod and the ticket to win in November, it would greatly enhance the likelihood that their administration would have a strong renewable energy policy.
Many people in the clean energy industry — those involved in solar and wind — are biding their time until the election and hopeful that the next president works with congress to extend the investment and production tax credits for several years.
For clean energy and renewable fuels to become a meaningful part of our energy mix, Congress and the executive branch need to work in concert, and Richardson’s leadership in the arena would be extremely beneficial in passing legislation.
Senators McCain and Clinton have also supported clean tech, but it is unlikely that they would bring someone of Richardson’s experience and enthusiasm for clean energy into their inner circle.
